RE: RPGIII compiler vs. Visual Basic

[Alan Campin <Alan.Campin@xxxxxxx>]

My post concerning RPG and VB6 was meant to talk not so much about ongoing 
compatibility but the fact that ILE RPG and VB.NET are new paradigms. They are 
different ways of thinking. 

I agree that IBM is much better at maintaining compatibility than Microsoft 
could ever be but the issue with VB is not one of compatibility to me. The 
problem is a paradigm shift. VB.NET, really it should be C#, requires a new way 
of thinking and that is what the VB6 programmers are fighting just like RPG 
programmers are fight ILE RPG. People don't want to change their thinking.

I know darn well that Microsoft did not make the changes to VB.NET just because 
they felt like it. They made them because they had to. They simply could not 
continue to support the old monolith model and move forward. They needed to 
have a fully object oriented programming language to support moving forward. 
Like I said, still think developing VB.NET was a waste. If you are going to 
rewrite, just rewrite in C#. 

But now an important point for the AS/400. In a real sense, we are in the same 
boat. How much longer will companies continue to support writing of 10,000 line 
monolith programs on the AS/400 and the associated maintenance costs? I think a 
lot of them already are voting with their feet and leaving. Those that are 
staying with the AS/400 are mostly moving to C# and Java front end. AS/400 is 
becoming a database machine. Why?  

IBM did not develop ILE just because they felt like it. They developed it 
because what we had wasn't working. We needed better ways to write programs. 
The real question for AS/400 programmers is, are we going to move forward and 
use the tools ILE  RPG gives us or try to stick our heads in the sand and hope 
it goes away?

So far, it seems to me people are voting to stick their heads in the sand. I 
have been looking for new job for months but keep running into same problem. 
Manager takes one look at an ILE RPG program and freaks. Don't want any of that 
around here. I know that I could lie and just claim to just write RPG III to 
get a job but what good does do me? Just get in and try to write ILE and 
manager has a fit.